STORRS -- The end of Louisville's spirited upset bid began with the prettiest shot in basketball.

You've seen it. The ball makes contact with the back iron, not enough contact to produce a sound, but enough to send it through the basket while each loop on the net remains motionless.

Immediately after Breanna Stewart buried that perfect-looking 3-pointer, a game-changer, she hit another. A swish.

That one was all right, too.

"She had the ball right in front of me one time and I wanted us to use some clock," said UConn coach Geno Auriemma, "and she just jumped up and knocked in a 3 right in front of me."

Auriemma paused.

"What the hell are you gonna do?" he added.

That seems to be the question, and nobody has yet provided an answer. Probably because there isn't one.

Stewart didn't score over the final 14:35 in Sunday's 81-64 victory, which was fine. She had already rung up 24 points and four absolute killer 3-pointers when Louisville's rugged defense, a necessity against UConn, eased up for a half-second.

The most pivotal sequence came late in the first half, with Louisville trailing 29-24, giving the Huskies a real game. Stewart had just been whistled for her second foul, but Auriemma opted to leave her on the floor. Here's why: She caught an inbounds pass unguarded on the right arc with 5:01 left, turned and casually sank the game's prettiest shot. On the next possession, she had enough space to release another 3-pointer, a bucket that lifted UConn to a sudden 35-24 cushion.

She looked like Dirk Nowitzki toward the end of last season. She looked more like Kevin Durant Sunday, the release on her jump shot equally high and quick, near-impossible to contest. This was Breanna Stewart from our perspective.

This was Stewart from Auriemma's vantage point: "Some people score a lot of points. She scores them exactly when you need them. ... It's like a guy who hits two home runs in the eighth inning when you're up 12-3. Who cares? She hits three-run homers when we're down two."

And here she was from Louisville coach's Jeff Walz's view: "There's no question she's the best player in the country, in my opinion. What she does is, when you have breakdowns, you'll pay for them."

Early, Stewart beat Louisville forward Sara Hammond down the court for an easy layup. Walz flipped. Immediate timeout followed by an immediate "Sara, what are you doing?!!"

Later, when a lapse left Stewart free for her final 3-pointer, Walz tapped both sides of temple and calmly said, "Jude, you can't leave her."

Minutes later, as the No. 1 versus No. 4 matchup predictably spiraled out of control, Louisville guard Jude Schimmel didn't. Problem was, by paying heed to Stewart on the perimeter, no one identified Stefanie Dolson running the middle. Bria Hartley bounced a pass to the center for an automatic two.

This was another Stewart masterpiece against another ranked opponent. She was brilliant in the drubbing of Cal at Madison Square Garden (29 points in 27 minutes), 10-for-10 from the line in that gutsy win at Baylor, and spectacular at Maryland (26 points on 9-for-16 shooting) and Duke (24 points and 11 rebounds).

"Mentally, it's not even the same person that was playing last year at this time," Auriemma said. "The biggest difference I've seen in Stewie is her ability to shake off a bad play and come back with a great play. Whereas last year, a bad play would frustrate her so much and lead to two more bad ones."

She's carrying a heavier offensive burden this season, logging longer minutes for a team stacked with All-American starters and practically depleted of a bench.

"The way I go about practice from last year to this year is a lot better," Stewart said. "I'm trying to prepare myself to be in as good of shape as I can be. If I have to play 40 minutes, you want to be ready and be productive while you're out there."

Afterward, Walz laughed at the notion that Stewart "has to" play so much.

"It must just be awful to have to play Stewart for 37 minutes," he joked. "I have no idea how (Auriemma) sleeps at night."

The mad scientist, as he's known, didn't concoct any crazy gameplan for Stewart Sunday. He ran a slew of different defenders at her -- a guard in Antonita Slaughter, the muscular Hammond, the rangy 6-foot-1 Asia Taylor. They didn't deny Stewart the ball. They wanted to force her to dribble and shoot contested pull-ups. And then they left her open four times and got burned for 12 enormous points.

"We basically wanted to frustrate her," Taylor said. "We didn't want to give her all of the things she likes to do...We just wanted to stay close to her, get her out of her game, and try to frustrate her a little bit. We had her for a stretch there, but we got away from that and she got a couple of easy buckets that got her going."

Think about it from perspective of Taylor and the Cardinals: Can there be anything more frustrating than attempting to frustrate Breanna Stewart?